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Camila Cabello Denies Taylor Swift Made Her Quit Fifth Harmony

By Jennifer Drysdale‍ 11:42 AM PDT, March 16, 2018

Christopher Polk/NBC/NBC via Getty Images

Camila Cabello is setting the record straight.

During an appearance on The Dan Wootton Interviewpodcast on Thursday, the 21-year-old singer slammed rumors that her friend, Taylor Swift, encouraged her to leave Fifth Harmony in 2016, declaring "absolutely nobody could ever persuade me to do something."

"If I don’t want to do something the whole world could be telling me and I won’t do it. And if I do, then the whole world could be telling me to not do it and I’ll do it. I’ve always been that way," she said, explaining that she was bothered by fans blaming Swift for her exiting the band -- and the drama that ensued.

"It annoyed me that people said that she was encouraging me, because I know she probably got a lot of flak for that or a lot of negative criticism for that, and that annoys me because I’m really protective over my friends,” she shared. “To be honest with you, she’s never, ever had anything to do with that."

According to Cabello -- who will be opening for Swift on her upcoming Reputation world tour -- the only thing the two ever talk about is "love and boys." "We strategize over it," she joked. "Our friendship is very innocent in that way and it’s so, like, pure and I so fiercely protect my friendships with people in the industry that are like that," she said. "Shawn [Mendes] is another one of those where, yeah, we talk about the industry but it’s, like, at the end of the day we’re there for each other as people.”

Mendes and Cabello sparked dating rumors -- and reports that she was eyeing her departure from Fifth Harmony -- after releasing their duet, "I Know What You Did Last Summer," in 2015. As the "Havana" singer explained on Thursday, however, "it was really just a one-off song that I wanted to do."

"At that time, I swear I did not have plans when I released that song to go solo the next year,” she expressed. “For me, it was just a one-off song that we wrote together and I didn’t want to give to anybody else and that his label wanted him to use as a single. I didn’t really think about going solo, I can’t remember when, but it was after.”

As for Cabello's current love life, she said she's "really, really happy" dating Matthew Hussey, but kept tight-lipped on whether she was in love.

"I have always been such a private person and the one thing that has been, I think, the hardest thing about this industry has been letting go of that privacy," she reasoned. "Because I feel like, for my sanity and for the sanity of the people I care about, you gotta keep some things sacred. I need to keep some things mine for them to be special -- and just to protect that. But yeah, to answer your question, I'm really happy."